Well, my dreams of making wonderful Lassis at festivals when I come back to the U.S. has been broken. Today I made a Lassi for myself and Manesh after lunch, it wasn't as good as the lassis I'd had before even though I did everything the same. Then I remembered what my friend the Lassi-wallah told me, "You can make Lassis in the U.S. but do you ahve good milk?" Varanassi has over a hundred thousand head of cows within it's city limits (I guess I'm still in love with the city, so I'll keep talking about it), that would be like Ashland having over 2,000 cows walking the streets. And that doesn't include the Buffalo. In Varanassi cows milk isn't sold. That's because there are enough buffalo to provide milk for all the people who don't have their own cows. Cows are held sacred here and the milk is too, so in the sacred city of Varanassi you can't buy it except in little prepackaged packets. What is the fun in that when you can go to the 24 hour milk market (It really exists!). Still on a tangent, excuse me, the cows all wander the streets by day and return at night for food and to be milked. Around 9 at night one finds little dairies have popped up all around the city. Basically people milking their cows and storing the milk. Nighttime is an adventure in the narrow streets, dodging the sleeping cows and trying not to anger them. I have been butted by cows, thankfully never by a cow with sharp horns. Anyways, the yogurt that I used to make the lassi paled in comparison with what is used in Varanassi. I'll just have to bring a water buffalo back with me :D
I thought for some time about what I wrote on my last blog post, I think I was too harsh on the english education. Education in english is a good thing, but, what is lacking is the education to keep culture and traditions alive. All across India people are throwing away their culture to follow the newest trends and to act "western." Coming from a western culture and recognizing that money and stuff doesn't bring happieness as well as the knowledge that if everyone on the planet lived like we do (those of us who are priveledged, to look at my blog, on a computer, connected to the internet), then we'd consume all the resources left in a matter of years. In fact we are doing that, but I'll take my emotions about the state of the planet out on my journal. You want to know about India. In India there are over 250 recognized languages, and I believe 17 official languages, english included. Someone I met told me that recently in the tribal northeast ethnologists who were sent to study a culture and unique language instead discovered a new one... There are a lot of languages here. Today I was listening to the radio and someone called the station from Assam, one of the Northeastern States and asked the MC to please speak in english so they could understand. English is becoming the way that many Indians communicate with each other from across the states and many cultures. It is a neutral language since it was introduced from outside, and the fact that it is probably the most important language to know, makes it a pretty good language to teach school in.
On a side note, my Hindi is pretty stagnate because of the Hinglish and English. Pooja told me that she had to ask the kids at school how to say pinecone in english. She is speaking on the phone now and at least 1 in 5 words is in English. This is the evolution of language at work.
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